1
as in pitiful
arousing or deserving of one's loathing and disgust
that's a pretty lame way to treat someone
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in unacceptable
falling short of a standard
the amenities at this hotel are lame; there's not even free Wi-Fi in the room
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in to cripple
to cause severe or permanent injury to
we were afraid that the horse would be lamed by its horrible fall
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of lame
Allison Morrow, CNN Money, 11 Jan. 2026
Your ultra-lame social media posts (with awful production values) don’t cut it by a Colorado mile high.
—Dp Opinion, Denver Post, 7 Jan. 2026
How will Brian Kemp use his lame-duck year?
—Aj Willingham, AJC.com, 1 Jan. 2026
But Wilson had been living in the neighborhood for more than a decade and knew there was a hunger for non-lame, noncorporate spaces.
—The Editors, Curbed, 15 Dec. 2025
Is this the world’s coolest Play-Doh or the world’s lamest memeslop?
—Steven Zeitchik, HollywoodReporter, 12 Dec. 2025
But its mere presence was enough to inspire a righteous rebuke of music industry economics, lousy crowd behavior, and lame dudes in goofy hats.
—Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 5 Dec. 2025
The dog whose paw was bleeding was lame, effectively useless to him.
—Ben Taub, New Yorker, 24 Nov. 2025
This is about an attempt by the Democrats to make President Trump a lame-duck president.
—Sam Stevenson, MSNBC Newsweek, 18 Nov. 2025
Bestreviews, Chicago Tribune, 19 Feb. 2025
There's nothing watery, limp, or lame about an onion boil.
—Melissa Gray, Southern Living, 21 Nov. 2024
And unlike other bread lames that don’t conceal the razor, this one opens and closes for maximum safety.
—Stephanie Osmanski, Better Homes & Gardens, 17 Feb. 2024
The question is, then, how can two lames convince the girls to look their way?
—Vulture, 6 June 2023
Adjective
His other go-to bogeyman, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, is now firmly in his lame-duck era as his term ends this spring.
—Verb
Additional accessories High-end proofing baskets can come with many other helpful accessories like scrapers, bonus lames and even instructional e-books or DVDs.
—Recent Examples of Synonyms for lame
Adjective
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Here in his pitiful, mini Gaza where reasoning and logic struggle futilely.—
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Instead Tripp comes across as simultaneously pitiful and predatory, a fine line that Paulson was able to walk straight to the year-round Christmas store.—
Adjective
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To make large profits from parking fees to make up for his terrible management of tax dollars and his expensive real estate errors should be unacceptable.—
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In just 24 hours, the president unveiled three massive state interventions into different markets that might’ve once looked—and sounded—like unacceptable levels of socialist dirigisme for a Republican to champion.—
Verb
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Both have endured crippling US sanctions that have precipitated economic collapses.—
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In November 2021, while massing troops along its border with Ukraine, Russia threatened to cripple GPS if NATO got in the way.—
Adjective
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Researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China have designed a new sodium-sulfur battery with higher power density and discharge capacity than before, enabling a cheaper, safer alternative to lithium-ion batteries.—
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Fentanyl is cheap, compact, and lethal at microscopic doses, produced through decentralized networks designed to survive disruption.—
Adjective
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Flooding may occur in poor drainage and urban areas.—
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In recent games, KU’s communication has been pretty poor on defense and that’s led to players taking (and too often missing) wide-open 3-pointers.—
Verb
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The suspect advanced on police after a roughly seven-minute standoff and officers deployed stun guns, which failed to incapacitate him, according to Minch.—
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Munoz-Guatemala was not incapacitated by the Taser, prosecutors said, and kept driving, taking Ross the length of a football field in 12 seconds.—
Adjective
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The checklist for cleaning the kitchen was probably just washing dirty dishes, wiping down countertops, and mopping the floors.—
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Don't be afraid to get your hands dirty.—
Adjective
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As analysis, that’s not wrong, but where’s the sting of it inside this bizarre bonbon of a musical?—
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Despite his brilliance and intellect, he was prevented from having a full life by being born on the wrong side of Israel’s separation fence.—
Cite this Entry
“Lame.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/lame. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
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